Toddler girls dies after being electrocuted at a carnival; grieving parents file wrongful death lawsuit

The parents of a Kansas girl who died after being injured at a traveling carnival are suing the carnival’s operator, KWCH-TV reports.

Court records show that Shaun Bartonek and Rheannon Babcock filed the wrongful death lawsuit in Nov. against the operator, Missouri-based Evans United Shows.

Bartonek and Babcock are the parents of Pressley Bartonek, who was seriously injured in May 2017 after touching an electric fence around a bounce house at a carnival in Wichita, Kansas. The 15-month-old girl died five days later, the Wichita Eagle reports.

Testing by an electrical company found 290 volts coursing through the fence, according to autopsy records. The lawsuit claims that the fence somehow touched the base of a light used for the bounce house, and that a grounding prong for an electrical cord was missing, according to the newspaper.

The suit says the carnival operator “negligently and carelessly” constructed the fence so it became electrified. The television station reports that Pressley had electrical burns on her foot, a cut on her tongue and bruising on her lower right back and left shoulder.

A coroner found that the girl “died as a result of electrocution.” A police officer who responded to the incident also was shocked by the fence, according to the lawsuit.

Russ Hazlewood, a lawyer who represents Evans United Shows, said the case is still in an early phase. The company wants the lawsuit, which was filed in MIssouri, transferred to Kansas where multiple key witnesses are located.

The parents claim the carnival operator had a “conscious disregard for the safety of the public” and are seeking more than $25,000 through the legal action.